


Break Me Into Lines

by idiotbrothers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Confrontations, M/M, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 20:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1721459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiotbrothers/pseuds/idiotbrothers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set sometime after the s9 episode "Sharp Teeth". Fix-it fic, but not really. Sam and Dean directly address their conflict, for once. It's not pretty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break Me Into Lines

Dean swore loudly at the fuel gauge of the impala, like if he expressed his anger at it enough times it would edge away from Empty and they’d be out of this predicament. The fact of the matter, though, was that the car was down to its last vestiges of fuel, and it was slowly but surely grinding to a halt in the middle of the dusty backwater road.

Sam gritted his teeth as Dean pounded a fist on the dashboard, wanting to say something about how if Dean hadn’t stubbornly kept the radio blaring and the AC on at full blast when they’d started running low, they might have made it to a gas station in time. But Dean was pissed off enough already, and no amount of icy rationale would’ve denied him his immature show of power, so there was nothing Sam could’ve done about it. Didn’t stop him from seething silently as Dean uttered every curse word known to man.

"The fuck are we supposed to do now, huh? It’s fucking boiling out there; I’m not getting out and walking." 

"We don’t have any other choice," Sam said, "Seeing as my phone’s dead and you  _forgot_  to bring yours.” Dean gave him the stink eye and leaned back in his seat, old leather creaking in complaint as he pointedly turned away from Sam. ”It’s really fucking hot.”

"You said that already," Sam muttered. "C’mon; we can’t get home before dark if we just sit here and stew in our own sweat." 

"Stupid goddamn case," Dean growled. "Useless fucking waste of time. Don’t know what we’re even doing right now, after what you said about us  _not being brothers_ , or whatever.” Sam’s jaw clenched, and he tried to keep from snapping as he said, “That’s not what I fucking meant, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped being so goddamned childish about it.”

"Oh yeah, what’s there to be childish about? The fact that you expect me to apologize for  _saving your life_ , or that you told me you don’t give a shit about me living or dying? Nope, nothing wrong with any of that. Everything’s fucking  _peachy_  in your little upside-down world.” Dean’s words dripped with acid, easily forced their way under Sam’s skin and made him see red, so angry that his higher brain functions stopped working entirely for a second or two.

"Fuck you, Dean," Sam ground out, a tremor running through his voice and his breaths coming out rough and shallow.

"What did you say?" 

“ _Fuck_  you. Nothing I say ever gets through to you, and I’m done trying to make you understand.” Hands shaking, Sam grabbed the door handle and started to leave, but Dean’s fingers dug into his shoulder and forced him to look back.

"Dean—" Sam let out a startled grunt when Dean’s mouth crashed into his, teeth clipping Sam’s bottom lip as he crushed their mouths together and tightened his hand over Sam’s arm, nails kneading at Sam’s skin. Sam pushed warningly at Dean’s chest as Dean’s tongue swept into his mouth and he ignored him, his other hand fisting in Sam’s hair and yanking on it sharply. Sam pushed Dean harder, getting a painful bite to the lip in return, and that shattered the last iota of his patience. 

Sam forcibly pulled his face away from Dean and fumbled the car door open, panting as he got out of reach of his brother, who was now also exiting the car. “ _What the fuck is wrong with you_ ,” Sam hissed, lurching unsteadily.

They hadn’t fooled around in years, and Sam couldn’t imagine what Dean had expected to accomplish by trying now, when they could barely sit in a room together without arguing and they had an intimidating bulk of emotional baggage standing between them like a barbed wire fence. 

Dean had a hard gleam in his eye, and he was flushed and breathing a little too heavily himself, looking sideways at Sam over the impala, which served as a sort of convenient barrier. 

"I don’t know what you want," Dean started, before Sam interrupted him with a groan. "That’s rich, coming from you. You’re the one who misinterprets every goddamn thing that comes out of my mouth, uses it to make me feel like  _I’m_  the one who should apologize. When’s the last time you apologized to me for something, Dean? Can you tell me that?” “I did what I had to. It was our only option—”

“ _Our_  only option? Like I had any say in it. Like I  _ever_  do. And what’s worse than the fact that you even did it, is that you don’t respect me enough to even bother telling me the truth afterward. And now you have the fucking nerve to walk around sulking like I’m somehow to blame for what he did with my body.”

Dean eyebrows knitted together, and his voice was angry again when he said, “Bullshit. Of course I don’t blame you; it wasn’t you who killed Kev—”

"Can you just," Sam started, overly loud and abrupt, before he lowered his voice and smoothed a shaking hand through his hair. "Can you just—apologize? I need—I need to hear you say it. I need to know if you…" He swallowed, feeling the sting of tears start up behind his eyes, but he ignored it in favor of keeping his stare fixed on Dean. 

"Sam, you. You don’t get it—" Without another word, Sam swiveled and walked away, his back to the car and to Dean as he swiped viciously at the sudden wetness on his cheeks. "Sam. Where the hell are you going? Sam!" Ignoring Dean, he walked on, putting one aimless foot in front of the other like it was a strenuous task. He didn’t think he could last another day with Dean’s commandeering, egotistical fuckery, with the knowledge that Dean would  _do it again_  even after having experienced the disastrous consequences of what he’d done.

He couldn’t last another day with Dean making him feel guilty and hurt and confused about whether he’d done something unforgivable, whether Sam’s abominable history was just catching up with him and spreading misfortune like wildfire, like it always did.  _I’m poison_ , Dean had said a while ago, and at the time some horrible part of Sam had almost wanted to laugh, because wasn’t it hilarious that Dean’s self-loathing ran the same color as Sam’s? But the weeks that had trickled by without Dean apologizing have made Sam want to shake him for that, rattle his bones and demand of him,  _Why do you have to feel like that if you aren’t gonna own up to your mistakes?_  

Sam loved his brother, so much that it was like a steel-knuckled fist to his chest sometimes, this festering wound that never scabbed over, never healed into something whole and normal-looking. He loved him with a gnawing intensity that he was resigned to, but that didn’t stop him from hating him in equal parts, not when he pulled shit like this and expected Sam to roll over and take it. Dean’s fingers clutched at the back of Sam’s shirt, then, dragging him out of the train-wreck of his thoughts.

“Don’t, Dean.” 

Sam’s voice surprised him with its forcefulness, solid and clear on the outside even though he was quavering and unstable on the inside. 

"I’m…I’m s-sorry. I’m sorry, okay?" 

Sam turned slowly to look at Dean, breathless at the defeat on his face. "For what?" Sam asked, slow and almost unintelligible. Dean stepped closer, seized him by the collar of his shirt. His eyes were boring holes into Sam, not entirely unguarded but enough so that Sam could see the boiling regret in their depths. "I’m sorry," Dean repeated, reaching up to kiss Sam again, and again and again and again, hot press of his mouth against Sam’s, eyes slipping shut.

Sam sunk into it, kissed him back with a hand on each of his shoulders. When they pulled apart, there was a single tear streaking down Dean’s face, and it made Sam think—with a perilous rush of hope—that maybe Dean actually meant it. 


End file.
